Out of the Cold
by CheerfulChemist
Summary: This is AU. After watching Countdown a few times I realized that Castle and Beckett did have a way out of the freezer without help fron Ryspo. This is about that. They don't freeze in each other's arms, but fear not shippers, Josh is gone. I think you'll be happy. I hope so . I own nothing, Sigh. You can look for a NF reference if you like. This is a oneshot.


Out of the Cold

Beckett and Castle examined their freezing prison. The walls were corrugated metal. There was no thermostat. "Stand back!" Beckett told Castle, aiming her gun at the door.

"Wait, wait!" Castle shouted. "Don't shoot door."

"What are you talking about?" Beckett asked.

"Shoot some holes on the cooling coils," he told her. "I researched this when I had Derrick Storm trapped in a meat locker. If you put holes in the coils the gas won't compress and the cooling won't work."

"Won't we get poisoned by the gas?" Beckett asked.

"It won't smell good," Castle said,"but unless it is over 11% of the air, we should be all right. It shouldn't be nearly that much.

"All right," Beckett agreed. "Your research better be right.

"We might not even have to waste your bullets," Castle told her. "If we can kink the connection between the coils and the compressor, we can keep from freezing."

"You always have been into kinks, Castle," Beckett jibed.

"Very funny," Castle said. "There's the connection to the compressor." Castle pointed to where the end of the cooling coil joined a coupling in a low corner of the container wall. "We need a hammer. Give me your gun."

"I'm not giving you my gun, Castle!" Beckett exclaimed in exasperation.

"All right, then," Castle said. "Do it yourself! The metal of the coil should be soft."

Beckett removed the bullets from the gun temporarily and hammered the coil near the coupling.. There was an added bonus when the coil came free from its coupling. Beckett immediately reloaded her gun.

"That's a break in the wall," Castle said. "If we kick it, we may be able to make a bigger hole and let some warmer air in." He grabbed the plastic from Jamal's body. We can get down on this to kick."

Castle and Beckett lay on their backs on the plastic and kicked at the metal around the tiny hole in the container wall. Slowly the metal detached and bent back. The temperature slowly began to rise. Beckett suddenly stopped kicking. Castle started to open his mouth. Beckett put her hand over it hissing, "Listen!"

Sounds of moving metal came from the door of the container. Beckett grabbed her gun and positioned herself with her back against the wall at the side of the door. Castle took the other side. A man came through the door carrying a 9 mm. Beckett put the muzzle of her gun to his temple saying, "Give me a reason to blow your head off." The man placed his gun on the floor. Castle picked it up and put it in his waistband. "Down on the ground, hands behind your head." Beckett ground out. With her gun in one hand, she handed her handcuffs to Castle.

With a broad grin Castle cuffed the man's wrists. "I always wanted to do that!" he exclaimed. Hold ing on tho their prisoner, Beckett and Castle looked for the van with the bomb, but it was gone so Castle and Beckett loaded him in the back of Beckett's car and drove to the 12th precinct.

They were met by Agent Fallon who angrily exclaimed: "What are you two doing here! Who is this?"

"This," Castle told him,"is one of the terrorists."

"You two are going to debrief," Fallon shouted, "now!."

"Fine!" Beckett shouted back,"but while we're doing that, this guy should be printed so we can find out who he is." Fallon nodded to Esposito who grabbed the man none too gently and led him away."

Fallon faced Beckett and Castle across the table in the box. "What other kinds of insubordination have you two been up to?" he asked.

"Sir," Beckett began. "We traced Kevin McCann's movements. He was at the storage facility and the warehouse _before_ Amir. When we got to the warehouse we saw the bomb there. It was in the back of a van."

"It was set to go off in thirteen hours," Castle interjected. "They started shooting at us!"

Beckett continued. "Jamal is dead. We escaped into a freezer container where they were keeping his body. We disabled the freezing mechanism and captured the man we brought in when he unlocked the container. The bomb was gone, so we brought the suspect him here."

"Why would a terrorist come back?" Fallon asked.

"We assume for Jamal's body," Castle answered. We told you, Amir and Jamal were not your terrorists. The real terrorists were going to use the body to frame them and Kevin McCann is one of them.

Fallon scrubbed a hand over his face. "I need to check this out, he told them. You two stay here"

Ryan and Esposito were dispatched to the warehouse to check on Jamal's body and the rest of Beckett and Castle's story. Karpowski took the fingerprints of the prisoner and rushed them to the lab. The emergency situation put them at the front of the queue.

After arriving at the warehouse, Ryan and Esposito found Jamal's body and called Perlmutter. They also found tire tracks that might have come from a van. Esposito took pictures of the tracks and forwarded them to CSU. "Looks like Beckett and Castle were right on," he told Ryan.

"Which means that Fallon was on the wrong track," Ryan agreed. "We'd better call him. He needs to stop leaning on Beckett and Castle and get something out of the guy they brought in."

Fallon was in the interrogation room with Beckett and Castle when he got Ryan's call. He pounded his fist on the table. "It looks like you two were telling us the truth."

Castle snorted. "No kidding! So now what?"

Karpowski knocked on the door. "We got a hit on the prints, she said. The guy's name is Jack Cochran. He's former special forces, an expert in ordnance disposal."

"So he'd know how to build a bomb," Castle said.

"Fallon just nodded grimly. "Get him in here", he told Beckett. "We need to break him, now!"

"How can I help?" Castle asked.

"Mr. Castle," Fallon told him. "I admit that your instincts were correct, but right now I need you to step back."

"Sir, with all due respect," Beckett argued, "If you hadn't ignored Castle's instincts and thrown us off the team, we could have had the whole task force at the warehouse with us. We might have captured the bomb and the terrorists by now. Because you didn't, we are running out of time. Now we need all the help we can get."

"You have a funny way of showing respect, Detective Beckett, but you also have a point, Fallon told her. "Mr. Castle, you coordinate with Detective Karpowski and get everything you can on Cochran and any possible associates." Castle and Karpowsi nodded their assents and left the interrogation room.

Fallon and Beckett sat opposite Cochran. Captain Montgomery watched from behind the mirror. "Cochran," Beckett said,"You've served your country. You've saved people from bombs. You save lives. Help us do that now. Tell us where the bomb is."

Cochran crossed his arms and sat in silence.

Fallon slammed his hand down on the table and up-ended it, the crack as it hit the floor echoing through the room. Pushing Cochran to the floor, Fallon pulled his gun and stood over Cochran with his gun pointed at Cochran's head. "You're no hero, Cochran. You're a traitor! You know what we do to traitors."

Beckett put her hand on Fallon's shoulder. "Agent Fallon, stand down!" she shouted, drawing her weapon.

Captain Montgomery came through door. "Fallon!" he called. Fallon lowered his weapon and walked out of the room. Montgomery nodded at Beckett. "OK, he said, take a break."

Becket was trying to pour a coffee in the break room, but her hand was shaking. Fallon came in. "I wasn't going to shoot him," Fallon told her. "My gun wasn't even loaded."

"Well mine was!" Beckett exclaimed.

"I was pretty sure you wouldn't shoot me," Fallon said.

Beckett fixed him with a glare. "Next time don't be so sure."

Castle came to the door. "We've got something," he told them.

In front of the murder board, Castle explained. "Our suspect, Jack Cochran was in a unit in Afghanistan. Most of the unit is still there. There are two members who are stateside, Evan Bauer, a weapons expert and Radford Hayes, a tactical specialist. This, said Castle slapping a photograph up on the board," is Radford Hayes."

Beckett looked at the picture. "That's Kevin McCann!"

Captain Montgomery looked at Beckett and Castle and pointed at the picture. "Go get that scumbag!"

Castle and Beckett arrived at Haye's address with a full force of uniformed officers and a tactical team. Hayes was not there, but his sister Emily was. She was scared to death at the mass of police cars outside her front door. Castle and Beckett sat with her. Shakily she told them that her brother had been very upset that terrorism was not being taken seriously. He had been saying that the country needed shaking up to make people pay attention. Emily didn't know where her brother was. She hadn't seen him a couple of days.

Castle and Beckett returned to the 12th. Ryan and Esposito were tasked with finding any properties Hayes might have access to, where a van might be stashed. Beckett stared at the murder board, hand under her chin in the position she always took when confounded. "Listen." Castle said. "Hayes wanted to frame Amir Alhavi and then his cousin Jamal for the bomb. He must have wanted to make it look like a terrorist attack."

"What are you getting at, Castle?" Beckett asked.

"Hayes no longer has Amir or Jamal," Castle explained. "He needs a new patsy."

Castle and Beckett looked at each other and exclaimed together, "Amir's wife Naziah!"

Castle and Beckett arrived the Alhavi residence to find the agent that Fallon had watching Naziah with a hole in his forehead. Naziah and her baby were gone and there was a note on the table about the greater glory of Allah!

Beckett got a call from Esposito. He and Ryan had found a garage belonging to Evan Bauer. The task force was on there way there. Beckett drove to meet them. An additional tactical force converged on the garage. Radford and Bauer were there, as was Naziah's baby. Naziah could be seen on a television monitor driving the van. Hayes and Bauer were thrown roughly up against a wall and cuffed. Bauer was questioned in the garage. Beckett took Hayes outside.

"You've lost, Hayes" Beckett told him. "Everyone will know that you and Bauer and Cochran are behind this. If the bomb goes off, it won't be blamed on terrorists. It will be blamed on three mass murderers, mass murderers trained by our own military." Hayes just regarded her with a stony stare.

Bauer was left sitting on the floor, with Esposito looking down at him in silence. Ryan went outside and came in again a few minutes later. He whispered in Esposito's ear. "That's it. Bauer." you're going down for murder all by yourself, Esposito told him. Hayes just rolled on you."

"Wait a minute!" Bauer yelled. "We did this for him! You can't put this all on me."

Fallon walked up. "You can still help yourself," he told Bauer. "Tell us where the Naziah is taking the bomb."

Fallon came running out of the building. "The Dakota! Columbus or Central Park West?"

"Columbus," Beckett said, sliding behind the wheel as Castle ran to take shotgun. They drove south. As they approached the Museum of Natural History, Castle said "take 81st."

"Castle!" Beckett hissed in annoyance.

"Beckett really," Castle insisted, "there's construction on 72nd. You can't get through. Take 81st across and go down Central Park West." Beckett turned left, speeding by the Planetarium and turned right down Central Park West. Naziah was parked by the gargoyle ironwork in front of the home of superstars, the Dakota. It was right across the street from the entrance to Central Park. Beckett pulled up behind Naziah and ran to the drivers side of the van.

"Go away!" Naziah yelled. "If they see you they'll kill my baby!"

"No," Beckett soothed. "Naziah, we have your baby. She's safe. Get out, get away from the van."

Castle had pulled open the back door of the van. Beckett ran up to join him. They looked at the timer. There were only fifteen seconds left. Castle took Beckett's hand, they looked at each other and he pulled every wire on the bomb. The timer stopped. Beckett and Castle stared at it for a minute, waiting for something to happen. When they realized that it wasn't going to explode, Castle put his hands on both sides of Beckett's face and kissed her. Beckett pulled back and they looked at each other. "Kate," Castle murmured. They wrapped their arms around each other and Beckett kissed him back. Finally pulling apart they smiled at each other and stroked each other's faces. Beckett pulled out her cell phone to give Fallon the all clear.

Castle, Beckett, Esposito, Ryan and Montgomery sat around the conference table laughing and drinking beer. "The mayor wanted to give you two a medal," Montgomery said. "I didn't have the heart to tell him that you didn't have a clue what you were doing."

"The Captain is right," Esposito said. "You don't know how lucky you are."

Castle and Beckett smiled at each other. Still smiling Castle told them, "You know, I think we do."

Fallon appeared in the doorway. "Detective Beckett, Mr. Castle, can I see you for a moment?" Beckett and Castle joined him. "I just wanted to tell you," Fallon said," Hayes, Bauer, and Cochran have been charged with conspiracy. Thanks to you two, it isn't mass murder."

"Castle grinned. "Anything for the city we love," Castle told him. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again."

Fallon nodded with a ghost of a smile. "I understand, he said. He walked away, leaving them alone.

"Hell of a day," Beckett told Castle.

"Hell of a day," Castle repeated. "You know, I've been thinking, I make a lovely pasta carbonara for two. You could come to the loft and we could dive into it together.

Beckett put her arm through Castle's. "You're on!"


End file.
